In this morning's Montreal Gazette, Hubert Bauch writes that "Gilles Duceppe denies he feels threatened by the gradual rise of the New Democratic Party in Quebec, but most of his fire at a news conference yesterday was directed at the NDP and its Quebec MP Thomas Mulcair. Speaking to reporters after a pre-session caucus meeting in Montreal, the Bloc Quebecois leader raked the NDP for being soft on gun control and hypocritical on the subject of Bill 103, the provincial language legislation that would impose new restrictions on English school access in Quebec."
This pump in the polls by the NDP happens mid election but when push comes to shove, no matter how disarrayed the two big parties, Team Blue and Team Red, are, the NDP cannot break through to even become the official opposistion.
Fear of success is what has held the New Democrats back since they were the CCF.
The Bloc leader said that the NDP is "...playing for votes in the rest of Canada on one level and for Quebec votes on the other."
Talking out of both sides of their mouths, imagine.
WFDS
Gilles Duceppe is doin' his own thing & a playin' his own games these days. But, there may be more to the conflict.
ReplyDeleteJean-Claude Rocheleau who was the NDP candidate in the Hochelaga riding and lost twice a distant 2nd to Bloc MPs resigned from NDP last August to concentrate on his duties as union president for oil refinery workers in east end,
But Shell, the only one that is still in operation is scheduled to close its' doors in November.
Duceppe has been courting Rocheleau to join the Bloc and it looks like all that's left really is for Rocheleau to sign on the dotted line.
Plus, a Bloc seat is about to open in the riding of Haute-Gaspésie-La Mitis-Matane-Matapédia, not exactly Rocheleau's home turf, but, it wouldn't be the first time a candidate/Mp/MNA represented a riding they've never lived in really. Like Hochelaga, that riding near the peninsula is a Bloc stronghold.
Plus, Mulcair over estimates the NDP's growing popularity in Quebec, or at the very least,it's premature. The true test would be when Duceppe steps down as leader of Bloc and I have a feeling that this could happen shortly after the next federal election. I have a feeling he's going to take a stab at the leadership of the Parti Quebecois.